Ideas & Findings

Although multiage and multigrade classrooms are increasingly common
in schools around the world, teachers and parents generally oppose the
arrangement, arguing that overall learning suffers when teachers have
to contend with such a wide range of student abilities. A new European
study, however, published in the Winter 1995 Review of Educational
Research, suggests that these concerns are unfounded. Simon
Veenman, a researcher at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands,
analyzed 56 studies from 12 countries. He separated the research into
two groups--studies involving schools that were mixing grades for
economic reasons and those involving schools trying out the idea for
pedagogical reasons. He labeled the two groups "multigrade" and
"multiage," respectively. Veenman found that, for the most part,
students in multigrade classrooms do not learn more or less than
students in single-grade classrooms. What's more, their attitudes
toward school and themselves are no different than those of their peers
in more homogeneous settings. Veenman also found that multiage
classrooms do not have any real effect on student achievement. They do,
however, produce a slight improvement in the way students feel about
school and themselves. "These classes are simply no worse, and simply
no better, than single-grade or single-age classes," Veenman concludes.
Still, he calls for better training for teachers who have to work in
these reconfigured settings. "Teacher training institutions should
acknowledge that the multigrade/multiage class is a present and future
reality," he writes.

Esteem And Violence

Common wisdom has long held that low self-esteem can lead to a host
of disturbing social problems, ranging from unemployment to murder.
Schools have tried to do their part to fend off those outcomes by
taking steps to boost children's self-confidence. But a new and
potentially controversial report published in the February 1996 issue
of Psychological Review calls into question this view.
Researchers Roy Baumeister and Joseph Boden of Case Western Reserve
University and Laura Smart of the University of Virginia contend that
high, not low, self-esteem may be a cause of violence. As part of their
study, the researchers reviewed dozens of empirical studies from
several disciplines on people with hostile tendencies. They looked at
data on murderers, rapists, violent young gang members, and spouse
abusers. They also reviewed studies on political terrorism, genocide,
prejudice, and oppression. In some of the studies, the aggressors'
self-esteem had been directly measured; in others, it had to be
inferred. Rather than feeling negative about themselves, the
researchers write, "violent and criminal individuals have been
repeatedly characterized as arrogant, confident, narcissistic,
egotistical, assertive, proud, and the like." Moreover, the offenders
became violent when their highly favorable--and often unrealistic--view
of themselves was challenged. "The societal pursuit of high self-esteem
for everyone," Baumeister and his colleagues conclude, "may therefore
end up doing considerable harm."

Boys, Girls, And Math

Do boys do better in math than girls? The question has been a
subject of controversy for years. In the latest study on the matter,
University of British Columbia researcher Xin Ma offers an
international perspective. For his master's thesis, Ma re-examined data
on 13-year-olds and high school seniors from the 1982 Second
International Mathematics Study to compare male and female students in
Canada, Hong Kong, and Japan. Within each setting, he found that female
students at both age levels scored just as well as their male
counterparts in algebra and geometry. He did find, however, some slight
differences when he looked across the entire testing population.
Analyzed that way, the data showed that male high school seniors had a
slight edge over their female counterparts in geometry. But among
13-year-olds, both genders performed equally well. "If the gender gaps
in algebra and geometry are fairly small up to the age of 13," Ma
writes, "it is reasonable to suggest that boys and girls may not be
born with different abilities in mathematics." His study was published
in the November/December 1995 issue of The Journal of Educational
Research.

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